Vox Media's game journo hiring spree

If you follow the Twitter feeds of any game journalists, you may know that there recently has been a bit of a professional exodus from gaming websites including Kotaku and Joystiq. Now we know where several of these writers are headed, as Business Insider reports eight prolific game journalists are leading a "big gaming vertical" that Vox Media is slated to launch this year. Manhattan-based Vox Media is parent to up-and-coming tech site The Verge. While Vox's specific gaming plans are under wraps, the experienced games team, hired on by Chris Grant, who was until recently editor-in-chief of AOL-owned Joystiq, is poised to become a significant player in consumer-facing gaming news. Grant is joined by ex-Joystiq staff Justin and Griffin McElroy and Arthur Gies; Brian Crecente, former editor-in-chief of Gawker's Kotaku; Russ Pitts, former editor-in-chief of The Escapist; New York-based pop culture journalist Chris Plante; and ex-MTV Multiplayer writer Russ Frushtick. "In terms of hiring these editors, I thought it would be harder than it was -- I thought the idea of putting a lot of chefs in the kitchen would be unpalatable to a lot of people," Grant told Business Insider. "But I found the opposite to be true." Just yesterday, Kotaku announced staff changes, including the departure of Crecente and promotion of Stephen Totilo as editor-in-chief of the website, as editorial director Joel Johnson moved to automobile-focused Gawker site Jalopnik.